


boyfriend problems

by anabel



Series: the golden boys [2]
Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Being Walked In On, Fake Dating, Fuckbuddies To Lovers, M/M, Secret Relationship, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27390946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anabel/pseuds/anabel
Summary: After fuckbuddies Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes get caught in a compromising situation, they have to navigate the fallout, while figuring out the future of their relationship at the same time.
Relationships: Patrick Mahomes/Aaron Rodgers
Series: the golden boys [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088150
Comments: 20
Kudos: 59
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	boyfriend problems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohtempora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohtempora/gifts).



Aaron’s publicist is the best in the business. He pays her silly money to keep him popular, scandal-free, and rolling in endorsement money, and obeys all her commands religiously. She manages his life with a kind but iron fist, and if he wasn’t as bent as a three-dollar bill, he’d probably be half in love with her. 

The fact that Shanice’s face has been buried in her hands for the last sixty seconds – Aaron counted – is probably not a good sign for him.

Finally, she drops her hands. “Tell me again,” she says, very evenly, “exactly what happened.”

“It was an accident,” Pat protests. He’s still as ruffled as a wet hen. Has been ever since Aaron dragged him out of ESPN headquarters, shoved him into Aaron’s car, and drove them straight across town to Shanice’s office. 

Aaron knows that Shanice doesn’t care if it was an accident or not. She just wants to know where she needs to start to fix it. If it can be fixed. Which he’s not at all sure of right now. But if anyone can fix it, Shanice can.

“We were filming this ESPN spot,” he starts. “Just a little teaser for the new season…”

“Wait,” Shanice says, and transfers her gaze to Pat. “Call your publicist.”

Pat doesn’t get out more than a “Hello, Mark,” before Shanice holds out her hand, takes the phone, and says, “Hello, Mark. I’m Shanice. These idiots are going to tell us exactly what the hell they thought they were doing this morning. You’re on speaker.”

She sets the phone on the conference table between them, and nods to Aaron. “Go.”

~*~

_earlier that morning_

“I am so fucking bored right now,” Pat mutters out the side of his mouth.

Aaron knows how he feels. These commercials always sound on paper like they’ll take thirty minutes to film, an hour tops. And then you get there, and you spend the whole morning doing retakes, and milking every last alternative interpretation of your three lines, and changing the skit slightly (which means doing it all over again). It gets old _fast_. Aaron loves L.A., and there’s a reason why he owns a house here and lives here in the offseason, but he’s under no illusions that he would ever have been able to cut it in the Hollywood life.

Right now he and Pat aren’t even the focus of the crew. They’re just standing around twiddling their thumbs while Joe Montana and Steve Young are working on their part of the bit.

“You’re not enjoying watching Joe and Steve?” Aaron asks.

“Not for the fifteenth time in a row,” Pat says, sulkily. He’s not as used to filming as Aaron is. Aaron’s been the face of an insurance company for years now. When he gets bored, he just thinks of his investment account, the one he sticks all the State Farm money in and mentally calls the “Aaron Gets To Do Whatever The Fuck He Wants After Football” account. 

But he takes pity on Pat, and walks over to the director, who’s between takes. “Hey, Maryam,” he says. “If you’re busy with Joe and Steve, can Pat and I take a ten-minute walk to stretch our legs?”

Maryam looks up at him, half-distracted. “Sure,” she says, waving her hand. “Be back in fifteen.”

Aaron gives her a thumbs up and heads back over to grab Pat.

*

Two minutes later, they’ve found a deserted office, with a sign taped over the door nameplate that says “on vacation – be back in two weeks”. Aaron inspects it with a cursory once-over, and nods to Pat to flip the door lock.

“Best idea ever,” Pat says, and surges over to crowd Aaron into the wall, the weight of his body heavy and perfect.

Aaron grabs his ass and hauls him closer. “C’mon then.”

The kiss is filthy, heat sparking between them with predictable speed. Ever since they’ve started this thing, the chemistry’s been off the charts. Pat kisses like he’s running for a touchdown, urgent and deep and fast, pinioning Aaron to the wall and devouring him, and Aaron gives back as good as he gets. 

“Fuck,” Pat says when they break apart for air, already dropping to his knees. “Been thinking of that all morning.”

“No wonder you seemed distracted,” Aaron says, a little breathless, because Pat’s pulling at his jeans, yanking them down with more force than finesse. 

“You try focusing on your line for the eighteenth time when you’re over there smiling that smile of yours,” Pat says, making no sense whatsoever, and then occupies his mouth differently.

Aaron’s dimly aware somewhere in the rational recesses of his mind that they only have about ten minutes before they have to go back and finish filming, but the tension’s been building between him and Pat all morning – a significant glance here, a hand graze there – and Pat already has a hand down his own jeans. He doesn’t think this is going to take ten minutes.

“Fuck, you’re good at this,” he says, and grabs the back of Pat’s head, letting himself thrust into Pat’s mouth, just a little. Not enough to compromise Pat’s voice for filming, at least he doesn’t think so, he’s not a _monster_ , just enough to make Pat dig his nails into Aaron’s ass, hard enough to leave marks. 

And that’s when the door opens and the tour group walks in.

~*~

_later that morning, in Shanice’s office_

“You’re telling me that you had no idea there was a tour group in the building,” Mark says, sounding skeptical and hollow over Pat’s speakerphone.

“I swear!” Pat says. “I was focusing on two things all morning: not forgetting my lines, and how tight his jeans were. I wouldn’t have noticed a herd of elephants.”

Shanice has her forefingers pressed to her temples. “This is irrelevant.” She stares at Aaron. (He can tell her thinking cap is on, which is a good thing, because his brain has been stuck at “SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT” ever since that twenty-something Valley Girl went “Omigod, is that Aaron _Rodgers_?”) “And you were mid-coitus?”

“You make it sound like I was fucking him against the wall,” Pat says, “and there wasn’t enough _time_ for that, also he’s heavier than he looks –”

Aaron ignores him. “Yes. They…got an eyeful. And I can’t guarantee no one snapped a picture.”

“Jesus,” Mark says.

Shanice is silent for a long two minutes. Pat fidgets, tapping his foot under the table, and Aaron waits, crossing his fingers for a miracle.

Finally, Shanice puts her hands on the table, palms down. “Nothing for it,” she says. “We’re going to have to take the nuclear option.”

“What’s the nuclear option?” Pat asks immediately. “Pretend it was my twin brother? I don’t have a twin brother.”

“You two,” Shanice says, directing a stern gaze at both of them, “have been secretly dating for a year. Mazel tov. You’re very happy, and more than a little embarrassed, and you’re asking for privacy at this time. Next week, we’ll do a sit-down with a tame reporter, and a photoshoot.”

Pat says, “ _What_?” at the same time that Mark says, “That’s good, we can work with that.” 

Aaron’s got other concerns. “What about – everyone?” Teams, coaches, agents, families, friends. “How are we going to explain that we kept it a total secret for a whole year?”

“Everyone official you can leave to me,” Shanice says. “The two of you are going to come off looking like horny idiots, but you already look like that, and hopefully we can at least make you romantic horny idiots. Your personal lives are up to you. I suggest you keep the same story – if the truth gets out, this becomes much messier than it already is.”

Pat is practically vibrating out of his seat next to Aaron. “But we’re just fuckbuddies. I can tell you how he likes his dick sucked, but I don’t know the first thing about him.”

“Jesus, Pat, too much information,” Mark says.

Shanice looks unphased but unamused. “I suggest the two of you start working on that. You’ve got a week before the interview.”

They’re _screwed_.

~*~

_that evening, at Aaron’s L.A. house_

Pat looks around at Aaron’s living room. “Nice house.”

“You’ve been here before,” Aaron says.

“Yeah, but I was – not really paying attention,” Pat says, waggling his eyebrows.

Aaron sets his wallet and keys down in the hand-carved football tray that Cobb got him for Christmas. “That’s it. Will you be serious, for once in your life?”

Pat spreads his arms. “What do you want me to say, Rodgers? I’m apparently dating you now, and I don’t know the first thing about you! And now we’re locked in your house for the next 24 hours, until Shanice gets a handle on the story, and my mom has called me five times in the last hour and I don’t even know where to _start_ , and fuck, our teams are going to be a _mess_ …”

Okay, Aaron may have underestimated how much Pat’s obnoxiousness was covering for panic. “Jeez. Calm down.”

“You calm down!” Pat says. “I’m taking a shower!” 

As he storms up the stairs, Aaron takes a minute to breathe, then sits down on his couch and fishes the remote out of the cushions. May as well rip the band-aid off. 

“In case you’re just joining us, the big story today is the breaking news that superstar quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes have been secretly dating for over a year. They were surprised today in a compromising position during a visit to this very studio. Publicist Shanice Phillips has confirmed their relationship, saying that Rodgers and Mahomes are very happy together and ask for privacy at this time. Terry, what was your reaction to the news?”

At least it’s not Dungy, that homophobic ass.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I’m surprised,” Terry says. “I thought Rodgers was still dating Danica Patrick. And it’s going to be a big story for football, the first gay players.”

“Not the first gay players,” Aaron mutters. It’s a sore spot. Any number of players have come out after retirement, Aaron’s friend Ryan O’Callaghan included. Jeez, what about Esera Tuaolo in the nineties, who literally wrote a book about his time in the league? It’s not cowardice to want to stay in the closet during your playing career, to want to focus on football and leave the rest for retirement. It’s _not_.

“The first openly gay players,” Strahan corrects, and Aaron smiles at him. Trust Michael to have their back, Michael’s been an ally for years. 

“Okay,” Terry says. “But are you telling me that you think they’re not the first _couple_ in the League?”

“I’d be shocked if they are,” Michael says, bluntly. “Look, Terry, gay guys are just the same as us. They fall in love too. And if you’re gay and love football, it’s not a surprise if you fall in love with someone else who’s gay and loves football.”

Terry nods. “I can see that. Well, all I can say is good luck to them. Aaron and Pat, if you’re watching – congratulations, and don’t answer any phone calls for a while.”

“Not planning on it,” Aaron says, turns off the TV, and heads upstairs to check on his newly-minted 'boyfriend'.

*

Pat’s standing in the middle of Aaron’s guest bedroom, still dripping, with a towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist.

“Uh,” Aaron says. “Are you hungry?”

“Am I –” Pat visibly takes a second to breathe. “No, not especially. Is that you?”

Aaron looks at where he’s pointing. “Me in highschool, yeah. I was a scrawny kid.”

“You were _tiny_ ,” Pat says. “Also, you know you’re not exactly escaping your Enormous Ego reputation by having pictures of yourself in your guest room.”

Aaron scratches the back of his neck, oddly shy. “Well. I don’t really – have a lot of visitors. And I keep it there to remind myself of where I came from.”

“Scrawny-ville.”

“The country,” Aaron says. “People hear ‘California,’ and they assume liberal blue-coast. But Chico – well, Chico’s not so bad, it’s a podunk college town that smokes a hilarious amount of weed. It’s a light-blue oasis in a dark-red area. But the area Chico’s in, it wasn’t really… very tolerant of people who were different. It was very rural, and very white, and very churchy. And that’s…that’s how I grew up, in groups that were convinced that they’d discovered Ultimate Truth and anyone who believed differently was a threat.”

“You grew up a scrawny gay kid in Republican country.”

“I grew up a scrawny kid who didn’t really understand _what_ he was yet, but knew gay people were going to hell,” Aaron says, and scrubs his face with his hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I grew up a hopeless romantic who had constant crushes on my straight teammates,” Pat says, still looking at kid-Aaron in the picture on the wall. “I had to make a rule before I went to college – no more teammate crushes. You let your heart get involved, you end up moping and off your game. Not worth it. Better to just think with your dick and make friends with the rugby team.”

“You sound like you had a better college experience than I did,” Aaron says, wryly.

Pat shrugs, something of his insouciance returning. “It had its moments. There’s a reason I’m better in bed than you are.”

Aaron knows better than to take the bait, but he does anyway, because the air is too thick right now. “That a challenge, Mahomes?”

Pat slants a grin at him over his shoulder, and Aaron tackles him down into the guest bed. They never did finish what they started way back in that studio, and Aaron will think better after a nut. 

(It has nothing to do with the way Pat’s shoulders are stiff, like he’s just barely holding himself together, or with the way his mouth can’t quite hold itself still, jumping and tensing at random.)

Aaron holds Pat’s shoulders down against the bed, and noses into the curve of his neck, pressing open-mouthed, sharp kisses to the warm skin there. Pat shudders under his body, big hands coming up to hold Aaron to him, leg hooking around Aaron’s waist. 

They fit together as seamlessly and easily as they’ve always fit together.

*

After, they lie in bed, silent by mutual consent.

Aaron turned his phone off as soon as he got into the car at the studio, Pat shellshocked in the passenger seat. Later he’ll deal with the world. Later he’ll pick up the pieces of his carefully-constructed life.

(There are Rules to being Aaron Rodgers, rules Aaron put into place years ago now. 

1\. Play the best football you can.  
2\. Never be purposely unkind.  
3\. Give the media humanizing information (he likes crosswords! And Jeopardy! And Game of Thrones!), but never personal information (he likes men!)  
4\. Never date a woman who isn’t a friend and happy to be a beard.  
5\. Sock away as much money as he can in the “Aaron Gets To Do Whatever The Fuck He Wants After Football” account.  
6\. Football is now. Life is later.)

“I thought when I told my mom I was gay, I’d have a cute boyfriend to introduce to her.”

The less Aaron thinks about his own family’s reaction to his sexuality, the better. “Well, you do.”

“You know what I mean.”

Pat sounds calmer now. He isn’t as frozen against Aaron’s side, either, which seems like a positive development.

“Well,” Aaron says, “we don’t have to stay together too long. Give it two months, then you can tell your mom it just didn’t work out. Next boyfriend can be the cute one you take home to her.”

“I did have a big poster of you on my wall during high school,” Pat says, seemingly not listening to him. “So maybe it won’t be such a big surprise.”

Aaron pokes him in the shoulder. “That’s weird.”

Pat rolls on his side, his smile sharper than usual. “Like you didn’t have a crush on some NFL player when you were a teenager, don’t even front.”

Aaron groans. “I suppose if you’re going to be my 'boyfriend', you should know my dirty secrets. Just – I’ve never told anyone this, so if it gets out I’ll know it’s you, and I’ll deny it to my grave.”

Pat looks delighted. “Brett Favre.”

“Fuck no,” Aaron says. “Ugh. I feel wrong even admitting this – Randy Moss.”

“Randy Moss?”

“He was cute when he was young,” Aaron says, defensive. “He made everything look so fucking easy, every catch so beautiful. I didn’t know if I wanted to throw to him, be him, or fuck him. I was a very confused teenager. And his accent was sexy.”

“That is legitimately the first time I have ever heard a West Virginia accent called sexy.”

“Shut up.”

“And he was a _Viking_! You had a crush on a _Viking_!”

“Shut up,” Aaron says again, and resorts to kissing him.

*

Pat kicks Aaron out of the guest room so he can call his parents. Aaron goes back downstairs and calls his favorite taco truck. They don’t do delivery but they do for him (Aaron refuses to use UberEats out of principle), and he is so not dealing with cooking tonight.

The young delivery driver smiles at him when she hands him his order. She’s the truck owners’ middle daughter, Aaron thinks? “We put some extras in, on the house. Congratulations.”

Aaron tips extravagantly, unloads the food in the kitchen, and then shouts “Food!” up the stairs.

Pat is suspiciously red-eyed and muted when he comes down, but he sits on one of Aaron’s barstools and stuffs his face with tacos. Aaron offers him a Modelo and he takes that too, downs half of it without stopping for air. It’s the offseason, and they’ve had a day. Aaron joins him.

“You’re invited to our house,” Pat mumbles, or at least Aaron thinks that’s what he said. His mouth is too full to be entirely sure.

“Okay,” Aaron says, because that’s what you say. “Am I going to come back alive?”

Pat makes a face at him. 

“I’m older than you, and I’ve been in the closet a long time,” Aaron says. “If I was your parent, I wouldn’t want you dating me.”

“I was the one who seduced _you_ ,” Pat says. “Do you have any more Modelos?”

~*~

_one year earlier_

It starts at a golf tournament, of all places.

They gravitate towards each other, full of teasing trash talk and good-natured banter. Aaron’s a better golfer, but Pat has the occasional brilliant flash. It’s a bright sunny day, and Aaron’s relaxed and enjoying life in a simple, easy way that he doesn’t often get the chance to. It almost feels like “Life After Football,” and Aaron leans into the sunshine with a smile.

Except that’s how slips happen.

Pat catches him in the clubhouse after the tournament, comes up to him with his golf bag slung over his shoulder and something sharp in his grin. “So, Rodgers.”

“Yeah?” Aaron says, fresh off his 17th place to Pat’s 42nd. “Nice shot on 11.”

“Surprised you noticed my golf,” Pat says. “Thought you were mostly checkin’ out my ass.”

Aaron blinks, sure for a moment that he’s heard wrong. But – Pat’s watching him, and Aaron rearranges his face in a hurry. “Sorry?”

“You heard me,” Pat says, and puts out a hand to clap him on the shoulder, bros being bros. “Maybe I thought wrong. But if I didn’t – well, I’m in room 147 tonight.”

Aaron spends at least two hours that evening going back and forth, back and forth, yes or no. If he says no, he thinks Pat would accept it with good grace, would even pretend to believe that he must have been wrong. (Because he _was_ checking out Pat’s ass, he got too comfortable, thought he was being sneaky, thought he could get away with the occasional look. That’s how people catch you. That’s how Life After Football starts too soon, and your career’s over before you’re ready. Aaron’s spent too long playing by his rules to change them now.)

If he says yes – Well.

He’s not totally inexperienced. In his figuring-things-out years he slept with some women, underwhelming experiences through no fault of theirs, and had encounters with a few men. But not for a while. Not since he started shunting all of that off to Life After Football, the risk too high to indulge in now. 

If he had someone he trusted, someone who would lose as much as he would if it came out – someone whose smile made his pulse quicken, someone whose ass was superb, someone who’d looked at him during that proposition as if he wanted to devour him – if he had a someone who wanted a casual long-term arrangement, someone who had the same reasons to protect the secret and avoid commitment – maybe he could have the best of both worlds. 

That evening he knocks on Pat’s door, and the rest is, as they say, history.

~*~

_Day Two of the Incident_

Shanice calls him promptly at seven.

“Good morning,” Aaron says, groggily. They stayed up too late, working through his alcohol collection and talking about anything and nothing. Aaron vaguely remembers fighting about whether Vinatieri, Gostkowski, Tucker, or Andersen is the best NFL kicker of all time, and that at some point he even hauled out his whiteboard and dry erase markers to make his case. And at some point Aaron thinks he promised to watch Westworld?

Pat groans and pulls a pillow over his face to block out the sun.

“Good morning, Aaron,” Shanice says. “Are you and Patrick following through?”

Aaron doesn’t have the slightest clue what she’s talking about. Then – oh yes. Learning more about each other so they can fool the whole world into believing they’ve been dating for a while. So people don’t hear the truth of “occasional fuckbuddies” and get their panties in a twist, because America is still a frickin’ puritanical nation, and it’s bad enough to have Two Gay Quarterbacks, but Two Pervy Gay Quarterbacks is a step too far.

“Yeah,” he says. “We, uh, ate tacos and talked about high school.”

Shanice says “hmm” in a tone that doesn’t sound incredibly convinced. “The coverage is generally good so far. Your teams have issued statements supporting you, State Farm is behind you, and many of your teammates are congratulating you on Twitter and Instagram.”

Aaron closes his eyes. That’s something he hasn’t been letting himself think about. Not that he might lose the locker room – he’s sure there will still be some homophobes who won’t be able to treat him the same way, but not many of them will be dumb enough to say it in public, not these days – but that guys might actually come out and support him. That guys might be okay with it. Even as the country as a whole has become more tolerant, he’s never quite been able to make himself believe that the NFL might too. But if the men he leads are still behind him and still his friends, and are willing to stand up in public and be counted – well. He swallows hard.

Shanice isn’t done. “Mark and I have put together a joint statement for the two of you to issue. I’ll email it to you, and if you two sign off, let me know and we’ll put it out.”

After their conversation is over, Pat takes the pillow off his face and says, “Is that what we did last night? Ate tacos and talked about high school?”

“Shanice has had more than enough details about my sex life for this week, thank you,” Aaron says, leaning over Pat’s bare hip to grab his laptop and reading glasses from the bedside table. “She wrote us a statement.”

“I love Aaron Rodgers and I’m so happy to be his boyfriend,” Pat says, in an annoying singsong.

Aaron puts his reading glasses on so he can stare Pat down from over the top of them. “You’re in my bed, hombre. I can kick you out.”

The statement’s fine. Short, nothing personal. Nothing that Aaron will have to remember later to keep his story straight. Shanice is the best at what she does.

“I don’t think we should issue a statement,” Pat says, out of nowhere.

Aaron snaps his laptop shut, leaning over Pat again to put it back on the nightstand. “Oh really. What should we do then?”

“Not that statement anyway.”

“You haven’t even read it,” Aaron says, feeling tired. Sometimes he feels like he doesn’t know Pat at all. He knows every inch of his body, every tell, every erogenous zone that makes Pat arch under him. He knows the fifteen different ways that Pat laughs, and how inventively profane Pat becomes when Aaron doesn’t let him come, and the way Pat flushes red all over when they’re fucking and Aaron tells him how good he is. He knows Pat’s _body_ backwards and forwards, and until yesterday he thought he knew _Pat_ , at least a little; now he looks at Pat, and wonders if he even scratched the surface.

Pat sits up. Even sleep-deprived and hungover, he’s a beautiful man. This is the first time he’s slept in Aaron’s bed, and any other morning Aaron would have tackled him back into the pillows; today he lays on his side of the bed and watches.

“I mean,” Pat says, the sheets tangled around his waist, “that we shouldn’t issue any damn PR statement. I’m sure Shanice is good. But if we were really dating – if we were really in love – we wouldn’t be hiding behind Shanice. Let’s just do a video for Instagram and be done with it.”

And damn it, he’s right.

“I’m not sure…” Aaron starts, and stops. Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I’m not a good actor, Pat.”

“You can’t pull off being in love with me on camera, you mean.”

That’s what Aaron’s afraid of, but it suddenly seems churlish. “Look, write us a script. We can try it.”

“We don’t need a script,” Pat says, and gets out of bed. “Shit, I didn’t bring clothes.”

Aaron waves at his closet. “Help yourself.”

He regrets that offer shortly, as Pat efficiently helps himself to a pair of skinny jeans (which he fills out much more dramatically than Aaron does, and without putting on anything underneath) and an old Packers t-shirt, faded green and fraying around the neck. “Get dressed,” he says, pointing at Aaron. “I’m brushing my teeth.”

*

(Transcript of an Instagram video posted by @patrickmahomes)

[Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers sit on a couch together. Aaron’s arm is slung along the back of the couch, curving down across Pat’s shoulders. Pat is filming, holding the camera up and grinning fit to burst. Aaron is looking at Pat, a softer smile on his face.]

 **Patrick Mahomes:** Hi America, this is Pat. If you have ever been embarrassed out of your frickin’ _mind_ , you know what kind of day I had yesterday. But uh, so, you’ve probably heard about this, if you have TV –

 **Aaron Rodgers:** If they have TV? If they’re not living under a rock.

 **PM:** Even rocks get Wifi nowadays. _Anyways_ , sooooo, this is my boyfriend Aaron everyone, he’s pretty okay and he throws a football pretty good. 

**AR:** (laughs)

 **PM:** Sorry to everyone for keeping it a secret. Sometimes you want to wait to make sure it’s really real, you know? 

**AR:** We want to thank everyone who’s supported us. It means a lot to us that our friends and teammates are behind us. We haven’t been responding yet because it’s been overwhelming and we just stayed in and ate tacos, but we will soon. Thank you.

 **PM:** Also, to all the haters out there –

 **AR:** Maybe keep that one just between us, Pat.

 **PM:** Fine, but you know what?

[The video shakes slightly as Pat turns his head and kisses Aaron’s jawline, light and chaste but still a defiant claim.]

 **AR:** (laughing) Thanks, America. We’ll be talking to you soon.

[video ends]

*

Shanice and Mark come over after breakfast, Mark fresh off a cross-country flight, and set up shop in Aaron’s living room. Their job this afternoon is to hash out a timeline, and come up with a meet-cute story, and make up funny relationship stories, and think of anything that might poke holes in the lie.

Aaron hates every minute of it.

He flees upstairs after an hour, and that’s where Pat finds him.

“You’ve been gone for a while,” Pat says, coming in and shutting the door behind him. “I told them you were probably taking a massive taco shit but I would check.”

“Thanks,” Aaron says, automatic.

Pat doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. “You okay?”

There’s nobody else he can tell, and that’s – that’s part of the problem, feeling so alone. Aaron’s been alone for a long time, ever since he lost his family, but at least he had friends. Now it’s just him and Pat inside this secret, and he aches. “I hate lying about this.”

Pat’s silent for a minute. “You want to tell everyone it was just sex, nothing more?”

“You know we can’t. And I don’t want to, that’d be – way worse.”

“Then what?”

Aaron doesn’t _know_ what. “I – just hate making up all this shit. Like, faking how we fell in love. It feels like whistling past my grave, like I’m screwing with my own future here. After football is over, I _want_ that, Pat. I want someone I can do all the stupid romantic couple shit with, I want love and marriage and kids and all that. Playacting it now is just – gruesome.”

“Huh,” Pat says, after a moment. “I never took you for a romantic.”

“Well, I am,” Aaron says, shortly. “It’s just a ‘Aaron Gets To Do Whatever The Fuck He Wants After Football’ thing, not a now thing.”

“What did you say?” Pat sounds delighted.

“Never mind,” Aaron says. “Let’s go make up our first kiss.”

When they get downstairs, Pat sits down next to Aaron on the couch, way closer than he was earlier. They’re pressed up next to each other, shoulder to knee, and Aaron doesn’t know what he’s up to – but he’s definitely up to something.

“Okay,” Pat says. “Change of plan.”

“What do you mean, change of plan?” Shanice asks. Her look isn’t yet ‘curdles blood’ level, but it’s only held in abeyance. 

“People don’t need the details,” Pat says. “They _want_ the details – everyone wants to know all the minute details of our lives, because they always do, and gay details are even better. But they don’t _need_ the details.”

“Details help make the story seem more real,” Shanice counters. “When you have a fake story you’re trying to sell, you have to flesh it out and humanize it. Then people are less likely to try to poke holes in it.”

Pat shakes his head. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. But I’m saying it’s not _us_. People are going to be _more_ suspicious if Aaron starts being all gushy and touchy-feely. He’s famous for keeping the details of his personal life private. And I know we can be all ‘that’s because he was gay, duh,’ but it’s also just who he is. I say we run with that.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” _Since you’re the big PR expert now_ , her tone implies.

Pat reaches out and takes Aaron’s hand, winding their fingers together on his knee. “We started dating a year ago. I thought I saw him check me out at a golf tournament, and I asked him out just in case I was right. He said yes, and since then we’ve been maintaining a long-distance relationship and meeting up whenever our schedules allow. Because of the long distance, in some ways it’s still early days with us, but we’re very happy and we’re enjoying the chance to spend time together here in L.A. during the offseason. We consider ourselves very lucky, and even though we weren’t expecting to accidentally out ourselves like this, because Aaron is really private and didn’t want to come out until after he retired, in some ways it’s a relief to be able to be open about our relationship. We’re grateful for the support, and look forward to introducing each other to our friends, teammates, and families.”

“I got that,” Mark says, waving his recorder.

Pat turns his head, meets Aaron’s gaze. “You good with that?”

Aaron swallows, forces his voice out. “Yeah. I’m good with that.”

*

That afternoon, Aaron turns his phone back on and starts replying to his – god – 431 messages, and it’s only that few because he doesn’t give the number out to many people.

After he’s done, he finds Pat. One look at his face, and Pat says, “Yeah, c’mon, I’m coming,” and follows him up the stairs.

At first there’s a frantic edge, all sharpness and frenetic energy, but by the end Aaron ducks his head into the curve of Pat’s neck and holds on. He can smell the clean sweat, and his own bodywash that Pat borrowed, and Pat’s hand is solid and grounding on the back of his head. 

“We’re good,” Pat is saying, a ragged rumble. “We’re good.”

Aaron holds on.

~*~

_Day Three of the Incident_

“C’mon,” Pat says, breezing into his room and pulling the covers off him. “We’re going to pick up my stuff from the hotel, and I want to work out, and then I want Starbucks.”

Aaron groans. None of those things sound appealing. But neither does hibernating in his room until the season starts. “I have a gym downstairs.”

“Sort of,” Pat says. “I want a real one. C’mon, I’ll let you fuck me when we get back.”

Damn, is he that easy to motivate? Aaron’s already half out of bed before his brain wakes up the rest of the way. 

“You could’ve driven yourself,” Aaron says a few minutes later, pulling his sunglasses on. “I would’ve lent you a car.”

“Nah,” Pat says, ensconced in the passenger seat with his feet up on the dash. “What if I got stuck in L.A. traffic? _Boring_.”

Aaron gives him a side-eyed glance as he pulls out onto the street. “You do know people are going to take pictures of us? Is that what you want to wear?”

“Yup,” Pat says, breezily. “I’m sticking to the Aaron Rodgers Rules.”

“…And what are those?”

“ _No lying_ ,” Pat says, using air-quotes. “This is what I like to work out in. I’m not dressing up with the paparazzi in mind.”

“You’re telling me you normally work out in a Packers wifebeater.”

Pat snorts. “No. But a) all my clothes are at the hotel, and b) it’s only fair, if I want to get you in a Chiefs one.”

“I’m not wearing a Chiefs shirt.”

“That’s what you say _now_ ,” Pat says. “I have a whole car ride to convince or bribe you.”

Aaron doesn’t allow himself to be convinced, but he does take Pat to his gym and introduce him to his trainer, and gets a good session in at Pat’s side. They’re not in peak shape, not during the offseason, but they’re still pretty close to it, and both of them are massively competitive. (If Shanice were here, she’d probably have Pat take a video of him during one of his exercises, and make fun, _sotto voce_ , of his grunts. It’d be cute.)

Afterwards they stop at Starbucks and grab sugar calories. Pat does post a picture of that, his Starbucks in the cupholder next to Aaron’s. Aaron’s right leg might make it into the picture, but no more.

And after that they go home and redeem Pat’s promise.

~*~

_Day Four of the Incident_

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Pat says, with genuine heartfelt fervor.

It’s not directed at Aaron. It’s directed at Pat’s dice, which have just landed him on Park Place, which has three houses and is about to have four, once Pat liquidates his hotels on the reds to pay up. 

Pat looks at the doomed hotels with a woebegone expression. “What is it, $1100? Can I just pay you real money?”

“No,” Aaron says, and holds out his hand for the hotels, remorseless.

*

They argue about _Game of Thrones_ while Aaron cooks dinner – Aaron is Team Daenerys and Pat is Team Sansa, but they can at least agree that nobody sane can be Team The Last Season Was Awesome, so at least there’s that – and then Pat goes all aghast when he realizes that Aaron hates ketchup and there’s none in the house. Aaron tosses him his keys and tells him where the closest convenience store is.

After Pat’s left, mock-storming out of the house, Aaron leans back against his kitchen counter, nursing a beer. 

It’s the first time he’s been really alone since the Incident, the first time he’s had space to actually think. Nobody else in the house, just him. Funny, just a week ago this was normal; now the house seems empty, too quiet. In just a few days, Pat’s presence has become the new normal.

His phone rings, and he fishes it out of his pocket. Cobbo. Well – okay. He hasn’t talked to Cobb in a while, and he’s missed him since he went to Oakland. 

“Hey man, what’s up?”

“Not as much as whatever’s up with you,” Cobb says.

Aaron laughs, only a little hollow. “How’s life? Are you gonna come visit me soon?”

“Sounds like you’re pretty busy.”

“C’mon man,” Aaron says, standing up straighter. “Don’t be like that.” Of all his friends, he would’ve sworn … he didn’t expect _Cobb_ to have a problem with it. He’s starting to really regret picking up the phone.

Cobb sighs. “What are you _doing_ , Aaron?”

“Trying to be happy, same as you,” Aaron retorts. He was in Cobb’s wedding, he’s told Cobb things he hasn’t told his own family. Cobb was there during his faith journey, Cobb was one of the first NFL friends Aaron trusted enough to tell he was gay. How – how can Cobb be having a problem right now?

“Look, if that’s real, then more power to you,” Cobb says, and Aaron’s heart settles back into a more normal rhythm. “But – I’m not an idiot. This doesn’t pass the smell test.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you actually fell in love with Pat Mahomes a year ago, you would’ve told me,” Cobb says, blunt as a sledgehammer. “Don’t give me any bullshit about me being in Oakland, we talk all the time. You wouldn’t have kept him a secret from me. Don’t lie to me, Aaron. I know you. I know how much you want a partner and a family, I know how much love means to you. Don’t lie to me.”

Aaron closes his eyes. “It’s… a long story, Cobb.”

“So tell me. Don’t fucking lie to me and tell me you’re in love with Pat Mahomes. Is this a publicity stunt? Are you doing a viral marketing campaign?”

Aaron’s teeth are clenched. “Don’t even. Like I would do that. There isn’t enough money in the _world_.”

“That’s what I thought,” Cobb says. “So _what_? If he was a girl I’d say you got him pregnant, but unless the Chiefs medical team has been keeping the secret of the century –”

“Shut up,” Aaron says, his anger building. “Shut up about Pat.” 

Pat’s dealt with this situation better than Aaron has, he’s the one that was on his knees and had to deal with _those_ comments, he’s the one that’s in foreign territory, stuck in Aaron’s house and Aaron’s clothes and Aaron’s life, while Aaron gets to fall back on the familiar. Pat’s the one who’s had to explain all this to his family, while Aaron’s family has maintained their painful but usual radio silence. Pat’s the one who’s stayed positive, who cracks jokes to make Aaron smile, and distracts him with sex when he gets in his head, and comes up with ways to make this situation more comfortable for Aaron, even if he has to disagree with Shanice. Pat’s –

Just shut up about Pat.

“That’s the first time I’ve half-believed you since I saw the breaking news,” Cobb says. “And I still don’t, not really. You would’ve told me.”

“What?” Aaron says, driven to it. “You wanted to hear the details of how I like sucking his cock? What he sounds like when I fuck him, or, jesus, what I sound like when he fucks me? You know I’m gay, Cobb, you _said_ you were fine with it, but you’re _straight_ , for fuck’s sake, there are limits to a friendship.”

“You falling in love with someone is not a detail!”

“Fine!” Aaron says. “Fine. Okay. We’ve been fucking for a year and Pat forgot to lock a door, and there’s no way in hell we can just _say_ that, because America has a chance of accepting ‘cute gay boyfriends’ and no chance of accepting ‘evil gay sluts’, so no, I didn’t fall in love with him and he means nothing to me, _is that what you wanted to hear_?”

Cobb is silent for a long moment. “Well, that makes a lot more sense.”

Aaron leans his forehead on a cupboard door, his lip raw where he’s bitten it. 

“Except it doesn’t,” Cobb adds.

“Cobb,” Aaron says, his voice dangerous.

“I’m not saying you don’t like sex, I believe you, please don’t give me details again. But fuck, Aaron, I _know_ you. There’s no way you’ve been fucking a guy for a year and he means nothing to you.”

“You _just said_ that you didn’t believe we were in love.”

“I don’t buy the, what did you call it, cute gay boyfriends shtick. That’s why I called you. But I don’t buy the fuckboy shtick either. Are you okay, Aaron? And don’t bullshit me. Are you okay?”

“No,” Aaron says. “No, I’m not okay.”

“Aaron,” Cobb says, and his voice sounds like Aaron’s doom, “are you falling in love with him?”

“I hate you,” Aaron says, because there are some things he hasn’t been letting himself look at too closely. “I’m hanging up.”

“No, you don’t, and no, you aren’t.”

*

After he’s done talking to Cobb, Aaron feels drained, exhausted, and like he’s just run fifteen miles in a Georgia summer. But for the first time since this began, he has a clear head.

He goes upstairs, looking for something in the guest room closet that he turned over to Pat. 

**Pat Mahomes:** L.A. traffic blows  
**PM:** also the first place only had organic ketchup and heeeeeell naw  
**PM:** back in ten don’t eat my steak

Aaron comes back downstairs, remembers to take the roast vegetables out in time while they’re just on the right side of charred, sears the steaks and leaves them to cook, and logs on to Instagram for the first time since the Incident.

He thinks for a minute, snaps a picture, thinks for a minute more. Then, with a smile, he starts typing.

(Picture: Aaron Rodgers looking at the camera with a comically unamused look on his face.)  
**@aaronrodgers12:** Some things you hear about and don’t believe until you see them yourself. I’m actually sitting here starving while my steak gets cold, because Pat is a barbarian and puts ketchup on his, and we’re all out so he had to run to the store. If I didn’t love the guy… #boyfriendproblems

Three minutes later, his front door slams, and Pat comes around the corner, ketchup bottle in his hand. He looks like a tornado hit him.

“Traffic that bad?” Aaron says, smiling. “Five minutes until they’re ready.”

“You said you wouldn’t lie,” Pat says. His voice is shaking.

“Do you have notifications on my posts?” Aaron asks. “Also, you were driving my car, I hope you parked before you checked your phone.”

“That’s not the – point,” Pat says. He sets the ketchup bottle on the counter, absent-mindedly. “You’re – you’re wearing my shirt.”

Aaron thinks green is more his color, but in a pinch red isn’t so bad. “Yeah.”

“You said you wouldn’t lie,” Pat repeats, and his voice is desperate now, Aaron _knows_ that particular tone, it’s the same with the lights on as it is in the dark.

He gets up from his barstool and closes the distance between them. “What if I wasn’t lying?”

He thinks – he thinks he hasn’t read the defense wrong, that he’s not about to get pile-driven into the turf by a monster defensive end. He thinks he knows, but he’s not sure. Life is risks; sometimes you throw a ball up on a wing and a prayer, and trust to fate and your team.

Pat swallows. “Aaron,” he says, raw, little more than a whisper, and his hand steals out, just resting on the logo over Aaron’s heart, feather-light.

The ball lands in the receiver’s hands, and the referee’s arms are shooting up.

“Patrick Mahomes,” Aaron says, “will you go on a date with me?”

“But I already got ketchup,” Pat says, “and those steaks look good –” 

Aaron hauls him in, gets him in a full-body embrace and kisses the shit out of him.

(They don’t burn the steaks, but they do end up cooked medium instead of rare, which to Aaron is a travesty and to Pat isn’t a problem because he is a barbarian who puts ketchup on them.)

~*~

\--coda--

_Day Five of the Incident_

Shanice is happy to hear that the Aaron-and-Pat situation has been downgraded from DEFCON-2, and that they can mostly handle it by themselves from here on out. There are still loose threads she’s working on, but things are easier now that it’s not a messy secret-within-a-secret problem. Shanice eats _regular_ problems for breakfast.

Cobb sends them a ridiculously large arrangement of flowers, which show up on the doorstep and make Pat go into alarming paroxysms of laughter. It’s golden and red roses, with a lot of greenery and a green vase, and Aaron rolls his eyes and puts it on the dining room table. 

Pat has a hickey the size of Texas under his jaw, and is busy remodeling Aaron’s home gym, and keeps grinning for absolutely no reason.

Aaron’s life is – kind of obscenely more complicated than it was a week ago, and he’s shocked to find out how much he kind of doesn’t care? But then, maybe he’s just too happy to care.

Forget Life After Football. Aaron’s new slogan is Life _And_ Football.

And it's amazing.

~*~


End file.
